JackDumonde

Scene is the entirety of Chapter 1 Millions are marching. Millions have already marched. Millions are preparing to march. An unstoppable movement proceeds apace. America beckons at the end of this movement. All roads lead to America. The world is marching towards a land of landless ideals as nations regather and realign to prostrate before the American ideal. Samuel Rockwell was one of these millions, a twenty-four year old from London. Born into relative wealth, he seldom experienced material want, yet his soul was starving. A little under six foot, he cut a handsome figure. Girls found his puffy cheeks cute, especially two dibbled inlets they enjoyed teasing him about. Most of his early years were surrounded by a close-knit group of friends and when old enough for liquor peddlers to pretend these boys were overage, they partied on excessive quantities of cheap vodka. After finishing school, Sam attended university, competed in athletics and cleared tables as he revelled in that immense period when limitless opportunities park their stalls behind each thousandth door of a possible future. But there was only one salesman who stirred his soul and like millions across the world, a young man signed the dotted line. Sam hugged his mother tight on the night he left for Los Angeles; poor woman had no idea if he would ever return. His brown fringe crawled over eyes dewy blue, ears wet, frills down the neck tip-toeing hairs electrified as he grabbed his backpack and shut the door to the first stage of life. First station, second, fifth; the train rattling. Sam made his final preparations in the two weeks leading up to this departure. He was initially dragged back to his old university supervisor who hopelessly re-offered him the opportunity of a lifetime. Then he met friends, asking them to visit him in America. Max Matthias was the final friend he met six days prior on the last warm day of August. Max was a friend only because he was an old family friend. Boisterous and brash in his Australian gesticulations, Max’s body cut the opposite appearance. He wobbled like a slender pond reed bent in winds, his lanky body teetering to one side by a heavy black Irish fringe. Max donned spotless white trainers on the afternoon he last met Sam, with cut white jeans and a florid Hawaiian he won in a drinking game partying in America’s groin. “Headache’s still palpitating” he said, groaning out an attempt at speech as he greeted Sam in Greenwich that afternoon. The town swarmed as they wormed into an overpacked pub. “Swallowed three paracetamols at four this morning and two at eight.” “You’re not drinking for once?” Max looked like a sunburnt lobster. “I’m no prude and certainly not a teetotaller.” He spoke cynically in his self-satisfied Melburnian, prudently stooping beneath a low-beamed pub door too low for his narrow height. “I’ll have a few and still drink you under the table. Anyway, it’s almost twelve and I’ve been up since four, so in my mind its long past midday.” It was a quarter past eleven as they meandered through the gloomy pub. It stunk of claustrophobia and bitter hops. Most of its stalls were pinned in damp felts with stained wood darkening this already dusty establishment into something more akin to a colonel’s antique lounge. Its ageing publicans were already drunk with glasses stacked as they scanned tabloids, occasionally glaring above their papers to scorn at two youngsters with all the mendaciousness of stale ale. “I’ll get you a beer.” “I’m no water drinker” Max said, rebuffing Sam. “If they pump anything other than gravy, get a double vodka one ice. No lime. They don’t wash the limes.” Max had yet to recover from his two-week bender in Miami fuelled by crack lines he and his banker friends sniffed ravenously. Gulping their first round of drinks, they discussed Max’s recent breakup with an American girlfriend. “Disagreements about everything” Max said, sipping his vodka. “Your breakup was last week?” “Tuesday, but it feels years ago. I got her spaghetti at that Italian near Leadenhall. She tried throwing it over me and the dish just happened to slime down the suit of a senior boss I sort’a recognised. Went right past my head like a frisbee, hitting him instead.” “From your bank?” Max shook his sunburnt head, flapping his Irish fringe. “Another one, but it’s an incestuous industry.” “Sounds like a movie breakup.” “Wasn’t it just? I abjured the world like a Buddhist as the banker chided me for causing her to chuck pasta at the back of his greasy hair.” “As if you flung it over him?” “Rest assured. Both performed their roles. Kate made a scene because the movies tell us to make a scene and the greasy fart played to a tee defending the damsel and reproaching me as a deadbeat.” Sam tried to hide his grin under a white T-shirt neck cuff. “Cut looking at me like that” Max said, frowning. “Like what?” Sam’s cheeks dimpled as he smirked. “Screw you and Jonny. You’re as bad as each other.” “What did Jonny do?” “Doesn’t matter” Max said, gulping his vodka. “He’s in the dog-house.” “I’ll never understand you, Max. I should put a stethoscope to your soul. Only last month, you wafted on like Wordsworth about Kate and I felt queasy.” Max thumped his vodka glass onto the table. “Look,” he said, “I was lying to myself. Don’t we exaggerate to delude? Demand affirmations when it’s hitting the tank?” Sam shrugged. “She was everything for a while. Even when there wasn’t a droplet left in the watering can, I tried my hardest to sucker up its last dusts. I kept telling Kate I loved her and she wanted to hear it, but I didn’t do anything to back it up.” “And what exactly did she do wrong?” “Oh, everything imaginable” Max said, rolling his eyes. “That’s a little vague.” “It’s all the titbits collecting like gunk at the bottom of a drain that you need to pour cleaner down to gut.” “I almost bought a calendar to count the days till your engagement.” Max held his glass close to the stained table. “That was never on the cards.” “Didn’t you call her perfect?” “I blabbered on about her a bit too much. There was a time when I really couldn’t think of nobody else. I always wanted to date an American and Kate was as good as I could get. When I met her family in New York, a feeling of…” he pondered into his vodka like Chinese tea leaves, “I don’t remember the precise words. I think you said something?” “I said it?” “There was a word you used.” Sam pleaded ignorance. “Whatever” Max swigged his glass. “It’s hard to pin down, but it was the same feeling whenever anyone spoke with an accent like hers and the same feeling beating me like a crazy bull on the day I arrived into America. You’ll know what I mean in a week.” “I’m not going to Manhattan.” “Doesn’t matter. It’ll be the same in Los Angeles. Perhaps worse because it’s Hollywood. Just find an American girl and you’ll know what I’m talking about.” He pointed at Sam with his neat glass. “Or gal as they call them and Californian gals are the whackiest after Floridians.” “I don’t think you’re making sense. Kate was level-headed.” “Only because she’s Virginian, but they’re still whack. The whole country’s whack. The whackiest people over there are the foreigners who aren’t whack.” “Well, Kate’s more down-to-earth than Maria and Isabel put together. They’re Spanish, so you’re schmoozing a load of bullshit. It’s the vodka talking.” “Izzy?” Max yelled defiantly, not giving a damn about any of the publicans staring at his sunburnt face. “Now you’re the mad one.” “I’m just trying to make the case for Kate’s normality.” “Listen. And I mean really pay attention as if your life depends on it because it will do soon enough. Are you listening?” “You’ve long taken my ears hostage.” “Now read my lips.” Sam leaned over the stained table. “Kate was normal in the only way an American can be.” Max spoke as if revealing a great secret. “Of course, she still had a textbook accent with those cliché mannerisms from the talk shows that makes everyone feel like a million bucks. And let me straight talk. When I was with her, it really did feel as if anything was possible. We had a high-rise apartment near Times Square. Each day, we worked above the world. I was called Mr. Wallstreet Guy by a bum flogging drugs on my daily grind and we’d sniff his white lines to get us even higher. Then at night we climbed the tallest skyscrapers for overpriced drinks and more magic powder.” Sam was mesmerised at the idea of America. “And that’s what most of us don’t comprehend over here” Max went on, lowering his voice as he unbridled his scornful ruminations. “Real skyscrapers only exist in America. Every skyscraper outside America is a replica like,” he pondered for a moment before narrowing his sunburnt eyes in contempt, “an Egyptian pyramid in Vegas or Tower Bridge in that godforsaken Chinese town.” “I wouldn’t call London a replica of Vegas.” “You don’t get it. I’ve been to Vegas.” “And lost twelve thousand?” “Seventeen to be precise, but I blew a lot more on crypto.” Sam gulped his pint. “Vegas doesn’t gamble on gaudy because it admits what it wants to be, but London’s gone the full mile. Even worse are European cities. Just look at those detestable towns in France and Belgium with the clocktowers and castles.” Max appeared genuinely ill at the thought of such sobriety. “Then they have a skyscraper shunted far from their medieval clutter and every polyglot bleeding veal eater pretends to abhor this American middle-finger as they secretly ogle it with all their provincial pride.” “I spoke to Raffa about this last week.” “Raffa eats his veal alive.” “Thinks we’re delirious for wanting to live in America. Yet he watches American television, blares hip-hop on his broken speakers, gobbles McNuggets and only has opinions on American news as if any of it matters to dingy Slough’s rundown charity shops.” “I’ll off myself if he prattles about dirty water in Flint one more time” Max said, resting an arm on the squalid table. “At least I’ve got sense to know I’m a recovering addict, but the world refuses to admit it’s also addicted. Climb to the observatory and look across the river. We’re trying to build Manhattan. It’ll never be the same and I’d know.” “Here we go again.” “It’s my testimony, Sam. And it’ll be yours too.” “Getting drunk for two years?” “America is a drunkards’ paradise whether or not you drink any alcohol.” “But you did drink a lot.” “I’m no teetotaller.” “That’s been clear for years.” “And I’ll happily drink every drop all in one go if it means I get to relive those years. I partied in penthouses overlooking New York. I saw the Empire State Building flashing in the night. I hailed yellow cabs in snowstorms. I saw the trees withering their final leaves in Central Park. I lost my soul in choruses of jazz. Wretched men on saxophones and tubas with hideous eyes smiling because of the tears crushing them cold. Their audiences roared and those really were roaring years. Years when I danced on the lights, flew to the stars, tiptoed like a pampered cat along the skyline of a city and sung the song of its electricity. Oh yes indeed, being a damn fuming mad drinker,” Max barbed his own chest, “chucking thousands into tills of roof-top bars selling preposterously overpriced cocktails. I’m talking two hundred dollars for a drink not like this shit, pardon my French.” He inspected his vodka morosely. Sam sipped his warm ale. “But when Kate dragged me back here after my work placement ended, I realised my love for her was only built on the love of an idea. That idea is now dead for me.” Sam asked if he wanted another round. “On me” Max insisted, downing his remaining vodka. “You’ll need cash for America.” The warmth of the pub and its throngs were worlds away from the coldness of the carriage. The train rattled towards the airport as London blurred into the obscurity of incandescent streetlights, leaving the fulcrum of a screaming capital for the Indian and Pakistani suburbs of the west. Planes soared and vanished over the horizon. Along the metal tracks, the train’s wheels pulverised in indomitable speed, shaking the carriages like hurricanes assaulting a boat lost on ocean waters. An older man snoozing by pyramids of luggage juddered out of his accidental sleep. His mouth groped in agony and his veiny hands gripped the seat for dear life after his dreams were hacked to smithereens by the rattling train. Sam watched him wildly shake. Then he shut his own eyes and drifted back to the memory before. “Six days till you’re off” Max said, sitting down in the pub with two whiskeys as nearby eyes sniggered at his flowery shirt. “Third of September?” “I land in the morning.” “You’re a loon for not doing it properly. They’ll kick you out with a ban for life if they catch you without a visa or staying longer than you’re allowed.” “I’ve got an outward ticket to Colombia that’ll throw off the scent” Sam said, clarifying his scheme to bypass border security questions over his return flight. “They’ll think I’m another tourist. Nobody will suspect a thing.” “How much was the ticket to Colombia?” “Less than a hundred.” Max tutted, checking a text message. “Can you get a refund?” “Think of it as a business cost. It’s peanuts in the grand scheme.” “You’ve got work, though?” Max asked sceptically, looking up from his phone. “In northern California. I’m chopping trees for a woodsman in the wilderness. I was given his contact by Will who helped him after being picked up by the old man two summers back, hitchhiking along California’s coast.” “Ah, Will Jaspers” Max raised his eyebrows as he did whenever recollecting an elapsed memory. “Haven’t spoken with him in years. He still bumming around India?” “He’s in Central Asia at the moment, living in a yurt.” “Central Asia?” Max was always bemused by Will’s antics. “Mongolia. Riding horses over the steppes.” “Christ almighty. Civilisation really does die with Will.” Max started nervously tapping the tabletop. “Not meaning to pry” he insisted, looking into Sam’s eyes, “but you get paid in your new job? I only ask because Will’s not too fused about money.” Max could only think in money. “It’s not much, but I get room and board. I figured it wouldn’t be possible to experience the wilderness without doing it the way I’m planning.” “How long are you there for?” “Till the new year.” “And after that?” “No idea” Sam said, cleaning his whiskey. “But I’ll be settled in America by then, knowing a few people and places to go.” A whooshing sound swept the train as it entered a tunnel. Although Sam had never visited America, its ideas were burrowed into his soul from birth by bombardments of serial television, popular music and happy burgers twitching every nerve end of an earth on hallowed names of Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood celebrities and Rockefeller Plaza. Those refusing America’s enticements are either annihilated by the most formidable military machine in human history or go insane by their own volition. Rogue bandits, rouge nations and rogue minds. Sam arrived at the airport. The lady at airport check-in scanned Sam’s papers pithily and the call to boarding soon began. “Gate Thirty,” an attendant spoke over loudspeakers, “last call to Los Angeles.” Hundreds of Americans clambered around the waiting room. “Dilan, get off ya friggen phone, dere’s plent’a time to natta” muttered an oversized Yank wrapped in a poncho. “We’re boarding. What’a ya waitin’ for?” “I’ve texted mom” another teenager moaned, shafting a purple beanie over her nuclear green hair. “I told her to buy peanut jelly-o.” Accents just like the movies. “Oh, Roger, remember that ever so sweet Gugarian waiter?” a tenderly grandmother asked her stern husband, softly and refined in Tennessee gentility. “He smiled so dearly. N’ what’a fine chap, givin’ us complimentary refills n’ telling us about opening times for...” “He was a Bugarian” her husband snapped irritably, annoyed at queuing. Her husband was a grey-haired veteran who felt uncontrollably flustered at queuing as he mispronounced Bulgaria, even though he firmly believed his pronunciation was absolutely correct because he imagined himself right about everything. “Argh, n’ mah legs hurt” he continued moaning like everyone else itching to sit in their claustrophobic plane seat. “Can’t these bloomin’ peoples get’a move on?” Then the crowds vanished. Darkness slumbered as the plane rolled back. A hum undergirded the machine as accents subsided, lights dimmed, wind guards turned and engines roared. This was the last connection Sam would have to England for a long time; forever he imaged as the plane ascended into darkness. Below slept an old country creaking under constraints new contradictions forced upon it. In front lay a future in its never-ending conquest of that past. One movement in one direction, from the individual to the peoples on this plane as whole nations and civilisations answered the same call.

1. First Assignment (Story Statement) A 24-year-old traveller from London, driven by a lifelong obsession for the American Dream, ventures to America only to face rootlessness, lost dreams and a battle over the very soul of the nation. 2. Second Assignment (Antagonist) Richard Diamond and Roberto Tárrega embody two antagonistic forces that erode the American ideal, each profoundly impacting Sam Rockwell’s journey. Diamond, a successful billionaire, embodies capitalist greed. He sets his sights on acquiring Jim Whittaker’s pristine expanse of wilderness; a land which comes to symbolize Jim’s unsellable soul of rugged independence and connection to the untamed world. Jim’s remote home soon becomes a battleground between his values against Diamond’s unremitting thirst for power and his belief in civilisation’s supremacy. When Jim refuses Diamond’s offers, Diamond unleashes violence to achieve victory. This act reveals the darker side of the American ideal when ambition and overwhelming power crushes integrity. Although Sam never directly encounters Roberto Tárrega, the preacher’s parallel narrative has important implications for the novel’s themes. Tárrega, a former convict turned religious leader, offers cryptic promises of salvation to a migrant caravan travelling through Guatemala and Mexico towards the American border. However, his presence soon undermines the migrants’ vision for freedom. As they face adversity, Tárrega sows seeds of doubt, steering the migrants toward a more militant path. His blend of faith and violence contrasts the migrant’s hope for a peaceful future. 3. Third Assignment (Working Title) My current working title is The American Call. I’ve picked this because it captures a deep and instinctual pull toward the American Dream, shaped by worldwide popular culture and other modes of cultural transmission. Much like Jack London’s Call of the Wild, my title suggests a primal, almost inescapable desire to pursue an idealized American dream. Other titles could include • Year 24 • Samuel Rockwell 4. Fourth Assignment (Comps) I am writing in the genre of contemporary literary fiction with travel, social realism and elements of magical realism. Comparable titles to my novel include Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Americana by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In his novel, Hamid explores the tension between personal identity and Americanisation through Changez, his protagonist. Changez’s life in America delves into the disillusionment of the American Dream. Whilst he starts off with a successful career, Changez becomes dissatisfied with American culture and reflects on the faults of its vaulted ideals. In my novel, Sam Rockwell similarly confronts destructive tendencies arising from this same ideal, embodied by Richard Diamond’s greed and the rootlessness of a capitalist society. This forces him to question the values he once sought in America. Both stories reflect a sense of betrayal, not just by a nation, but by the very ideals this nation supposedly offers to the world. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel also explores personal identity and aspirations in the context of the American Dream. Adichie critiques the way in which American ideals are sold to the world as gilded promises when they are actually bound up with less savoury realities. As with Adichie's novel, mine critiques the American ideal through foreign born characters like Sam Rockwell and the migrants who join the caravan hoping for a better life in America. It delves into how the American Dream distorts people’s hopes for a better life with unrealisable promises. 5. Fifth Assignment (Hook) A young man searching for freedom, Sam Rockwell travels to America, but becomes entangled in a ferocious struggle between a stubborn woodsman defending his land and a ruthless billionaire seeking to claim it. 6. Sixth Assignment (Inner Conflict) Sam Rockwell’s inner conflict stems from his strong conviction in the American Dream, always admiring its purported greatness from afar and is driven to claim his own place within it. He arrives in America with a firm belief in this dream, but as he immerses himself in its harsh realities, his dream fractures. This confrontation with reality not only takes place with cruel and power-hungry characters, but when Sam explores California’s dilapidated cities. An example of this discontent over California’s fabled cities is highlighted in this following scene when Sam encounters the grim reality of San Francisco for the first time: “Think of Frisco as vintage” Max often explained, striding out of the pub on the last day they chatted in London. “Locals call it Frisco. You’ll like its skyscrapers. All of them glisten even if the city’s limping off a long-dead repute. And,” he smirked, “it stinks of urinated cheese.” The bus took longer than expected after getting caught up in a tailback outside the Bay Area. After dark, it stopped by a metal fence in San Jose for one or two passengers to disembark. Oakland also had a rundown feel. There was a dimly lit supermarket at the end of a parking lot filled with scattered trollies. In one corner, an elderly man tried heaving open the store’s heavy doors. Sam noticed a huddle of hooded teenagers watching him, loitering under a liquor advert as they gazed at the poor man struggling hopelessly. But their attention was diverted to the bus driving past and they looked especially threatening as the whites of their eyes appeared to scan the passengers within. They swiftly evaporated into shadows along with the ruins of Oakland as Sam crossed the Bay Bridge toward the many lights rising from the final city of the West. Yerba Buena Island connected the bridge in two parts to hold up the headlights streaming towards San Francisco. There was a smaller island further away with a ruin barely perceptible on its mount. Behind its decaying stone, covered by walls of cloud, stretched the Golden Gate Bridge. The magnificent horizon dissipated to concrete as Sam stepped out the Megabus and sniffed a urinated stench over Townsend. “Ergh” he grimaced as tangy urine filtered down his throat. “Argh…” and he coughed again. “Max was right.” “That’s a Frisco welcome” a passenger laughed at his facial contortions, manically grinning as she carried a black guitar case. “Oh, and avoid that alleyway” she pointed down a labyrinth with drug dealers leaning on ensembles of bins. San Francisco had far more people wandering its streets than Los Angeles. As he searched for his hostel, Sam counted hundreds of unkempt bodies staggering down paths opened-mouthed and muddled. He shuddered at one woman lying in a doorway like a corpse as she gripped a hole-ridden American flag. He saw syringes by her feet as her wrinkled face clattered its skull, following Sam’s movements and never rising to his eyes as she fixated her gaze onto the skyscrapers and a hologram dancing on top of the great glass tower. A man in rags howled as he hurtled through an alleyway before slipping and whacking his head on the ground, rolling in urine near piles of trash. A passing suit quickened his pace after seeing him fall. This smartly-dressed man seemed frightened and Sam noticed him clasping tight something in his pockets as more huddles emerged. Ascending over the shadows of this crumbling beauty, above gutters and scuttling puddles, skyscrapers soared into the night like tombstones stamping on all the life gasping beneath their ominous splendour. All was quiet in these submerged realms until suddenly, abruptly and with terrible screams, the nerve ends of a civilisation erupted in flashing glory, crowds and never-ending honks reflecting its misery and wealth down the glossy sheen panes at this epicentre of an empire spreading into all four corners of the human mind. The AMC IMAX glowed its blue hues across crowds sweeping over neon sidewalks serenaded by buskers, bums and thousands bombarding down avenues; a ceaseless mass jiving as they swung off roadsides and sung in the depths of their sobbing souls all the weeping jazz pummelled by these syringe strewn streets no longer even bothering to hide arms in flex trying to find veins on withered biceps. Down these swarming roads, long sharp needles whizzed brains at these ends of a final generation levitating intellects into diseased illuminations. Bums with burnt crack pipes smiled their few grimy teeth in heavenly ecstasy. Pedestrians stared down at these slouched heads of heroine happiness, seemingly nonplussed but unanimously disgusted. The secondary conflict involves Roberto Tárrega and the migrant caravan . This parallel narrative particularly focuses on Enrique Balam's family and the growing influence of Tárrega over some of its members. As Enrique’s family and other migrants’ journey northward, Tárrega’s mysterious presence stirs divisions. The conflict between Tárrega’s influence and Enrique Balam’s family mirrors the broader exploration of idealism and disillusionment in the novel. As Sam wrestles with the complexities of the American Dream in his own journey, Tárrega’s presence challenges Enrique and his family with profound troubles that complicates their path to America. 7. Seventh Assignment (Setting) At the heart of this story is a narration of travel. My writing attempts to capture the variation of the numerous settings where my novel takes place. I want the reader to travel along with the characters of this story. The setting takes place between two parallel story arcs. The first focuses on Sam Rockwell’s journey through California’s major cities and its northern wilderness. Los Angeles and San Francisco act as the backdrop for his initial journey. They are tumultuous concrete jungles of glistening skyscrapers and grinding poverty. Sun-kissed palm trees line the beaches of Venice and Santa Monica. Whilst its immediate vicinity is a desolate expanse of syringes and urban neglect, the tranquillity of Venice is ruptured at night for volcanic parties. The novel follows a group of travellers who journey towards a nightclub as Los Angeles is obliterated by fast cars, endless crime, sexual energy and narcotics. San Francisco contrasts this sexualised and celebrity energy with desolation. The city is filled with stenches of decay, crumbling avenues and broken souls. It symbolises the ruin of a great city which appears beautiful for afar, but morbidly ill at closer perspective. San Francisco embodies the decay of the American Dream. The other major setting for this first story arc takes place in the northern Californian wilderness and contrasts the brutality of civilisation. It is a world of mountains and forests teeming with secretive beasts. The woodsman who occupies this wild is part of its forests whilst the billionaire who seeks to bring the wilderness under his remorseless domain embodies civilisation and money. The second story arc takes place in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico as it follows a migrant caravan towards the American border. It journeys through the lush jungles and slum cities of Central America, marching up great highways. Important scenes take place in colonial churches, on rivers guarded by military police and under the stars in deserts. The beauty of this natural world is contrasted to the chaos of America’s cities until the caravan finally reaches Tijuana at the American border. These scenes are always changing location, giving the reader a sense of immense wonder at the world, but also permanent unease at constantly new locations and the ceaseless movement of migrants across the unknown.